Media Journal

MEDIA JOURNAL
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(December 01, 2012)
Media Article
Cultivation theory
The cultivation theory was developed in the late 1960s by George Gerbner, the theory of cultivation aimed at presenting a shift from the paradigm that had been presented by Paul lazarsfeld this theory was so popular and it had dominated in the 1940s. The cultivation theory is also called the stalagmite theory or the cultivation analysis. The theory comes up with a suggestion that the media effects occur just like the slow build up of the formations on cave floors which usually take their form after a continuous dripping of limewater from the ceiling above it. The emergence of the cultivation theory came as a result of the increase in television and the major aim of the theory by Gerber was to study the effects the televisions had on the viewers and their perception of the everyday world and how it is like (Richard & Harris, 2009).
The cultivation theory is based on some principles that make suggestions these principle are that the viewing of television is responsible for the shaping of the perception one has about the social realities. This is to state that the kind of issues one watches on the television decides the views one has on the world and how one thinks about the occurrences of events. the other principle of the cultivation theory suggests that the combined effects of the excess television watching by viewers over a certain period that it eventually shapes the views or the perceptions one has on the social realities for single individual that is exposed to the television and it eventually changes the perception for the whole culture as all viewers gain the televised perception. The other principle on the theory is the argument by the cultivation theorist that there are long term effects from the television that are indirect, gradual and small but they accumulate with time and become significant.
According to the views of Gabber what most people saw on television was violence and it led to the perception that the world is full of violence. The definition that was adopted by Gabber for violence was that it is the incursion of over expression of physical force and the compelling of one`s action against their will by threatening or victimizing others and making all this part of a televised plot. Gabber together with his colleagues had studied television for 22 years and they recorded the quantity of violence on randomly selected programs and the finding was that this was stable over time. They found that dramas with inclusion of violence had an average of five violent incidents per hour of viewing. The cultivation theory targeted four major attitudes from the viewers, the chance of being involved with violence the results are that heavy viewers of television reported being involved in violence more that light viewers. The other is the fear of walking alone at night women who viewed violence programs were more afraid...